32 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES. 



When the cormorants' eggs are all hatched, and the gull 

 still wishes to mix a little egg with his diet, he torments the 

 murres. Now the murres are foolish birds that bow their 

 long, brown necks and silly heads continually, and grunt 

 harshly, but they love their one big, pear-shaped egg. Always 

 one or the other stays by it, hugging it between his or her 

 long thighs and brooding over it. For all their folly they 

 know enough not to trust a gull. As they are more than half 

 the size of the gulls, the gulls prefer stratagem to force. A 

 number of them combine to attack the murre in concert, and 

 so harass and frighten her that she tries either to escape or to 

 confront them. This is the gull's opportunity. The big egg 

 must be exposed for a moment. While the rest keep up their 

 clamor and feigned attacks, one of the gulls steals in and 

 seizes the egg in his bill. It must be a very large mouthful, 

 for a murre's egg is much larger than a hen's egg, and the 

 gull's bill is but little over two inches long. He breaks the 

 egg by rolling it about the rocks until dented by rough usage, 

 after which he sucks its contents. Not only do the gulls 

 rob the birds, but they rob the eggers. Unless the heaps of 

 eggs which the eggers pile up are covered very closely, the 

 gulls will work their way under the cloths and carry off every 



egg. 



But eggs are not all their plunder. They just as willingly 

 take the live young murres or a dead old bird. And they 

 have a particular fondness for young rabbits. They will sit 

 and watch by the rabbit burrows an hour waiting for the 

 little rabbit to come out, and then will work fifteen minutes 

 in trying to swallow him. 



